6 points about hell or high water

So summer 2016 was quite the let down with regard to the highly anticipated blockbusters, but the smaller independent films shone. In December 2015, nobody looked at the slate for 2016 and thought “Man I can’t wait for Hell or High Water”. Yet as the year draws to a close, anybody who seen this movie will have near the top of their lists of best movies of 2016. The crime-drama was absolutely brilliant and see why with my 6 points about Hell or High Water below.

1&2 The acting was pure brilliance.

I’ve decided to merge the first two points together because there was so much to talk about with regard to the acting and I didn’t want to leave anybody out.
One of the best acted movies of the year, period. There was no bad performance in the entire movie. Chris Pine stepped away from the Star Trek franchise and played the divorced middle aged man, Toby Howard. Pine was able to just simply act without having the pressure of being a lead character in a major franchise. He didn’t have the pressure of fan-backlash if he messed up, and this weight of his shoulders seemed to only improve his performance. He grew into his character as the movie developed and played to his character’s emotions perfectly. I doubt he will get nominated for lead actor, but it was still my favourite ever Pine performance. And I love him in the Star Trek movies.

Jeff Bridges was absolutely outstanding in this movie. He played an almost retired police chief and he acted amazingly to his characters back-story and what was going on in this police chief’s life. Bridges had great back-and-forth with Gil Birmingham’s character, and was one of my favourite aspects of the movie. He has a very good chance of getting nominated for supporting actor. In my eyes, he should already be a sure-fire nomination, but who knows.

And finally, we have Ben Foster. Foster was astonishingly good in the movie. His character was so damn interesting and Foster’s acting was unbelievable. 100% deserves to be nominated for his performance, and hopefully he will. Probably the stand-out in a movie with so many great performances, and that is no easy feat. He was totally immersed in his role and was brilliant.

3 The story made so much sense.
Often times, with these heist movie’s, the characters motives can be unexplained. This movie totally went in the other direction, and you almost fully understood everybody’s perspective. I realised why Foster and Pine were doing this and, while it was bad, it was still for a legit reason. This was done perfectly on-screen. Everything that very character did, made perfect sense and you could see their reasoning. This was done to great storytelling and great directing from David Macenzie. This is one of the major reasons for my enjoyment of this movie

4. You never knew who to root for, which was a good thing.

There were no protagonists or antagonists in Hell or High Water. Everybody had a good story and interesting background. There was equal screen-time between Pine and Foster and Bridges and Birmingham. The stories and issues for each character were as interesting as the next. This made it very hard to choose who to root for, and this is a major positive. As I previously stated, anything that anybody did, made perfect sense and the conflict that was going on in my head as the movie went on made go even further off the edge of my seat. Nobody was the villain, so to speak, and this made Hell or High Water stand out from the rest.

5. The slow pace of the movie was done to perfection.

This is not a crazy theatrical blockbuster. The movie isn’t fast paced and is filled with great visuals. It is a realistic story about characters and how they plan on robbing a chain of banks. Even the bank robbery scenes are extremely realistic it always feels as if you are there watching the events unfold, instead of on a screen. While it isn’t a fast-paced extravaganza, there is always tension and I was always on the edge of my seat. This is all down to some great directing and a great story being told. Never was I bored of what was going on and the runtime was perfect. Good job guys!

6. Overall, this is an outstanding, slow-paced, edge-of-your seat drama with amazing acting and direction.

Finding any flaws with Hell or High Water is a hard task. Almost everything is perfect. The acting, directing, score, cinematography, you name it, it was perfect. This movie blended genres together by having realistic action, thriller elements and even some great comedic dialogue. This humour was very typical of Gil Birmingham and Jeff Bridges character. Not a movie that should ever even consider a sequel. This is an almost perfect, small movie. I hope it does very well come awards season and thoroughly deserves to. I will give Hell or High Water a 9.5/10.